Cloverfield
Feb. 26th, 2008 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyI'm normally unequivocal about films - I either like or dislike them. Star Wars? Good. Phantom Menace? Bad. It's usually that simple. Cloverfield is unusual in that I really can't decide whether I like it or not, because I'm not entirely sure if some of the more interesting subtext to the film is deliberate or not. I walked out of the cinema fairly certain that I didn't like it. It's predictable and derivative and apart from being pretty I didn't think had much going for it. The more I think, however, the more I'm not so sure...
In case you're not aware, Cloverfield is a monster movie. A combination of two of the major pop-culture events of the early C21 - Blair Witch and 9/11 - in which a giant monster attack on New York is seen in hand held camera footage taken by some one caught up in it.
The most obvious influence is Godzilla, and JJ Abrams (the writer) has said that he wanted to create a US version of that Japanese monster. In the same way that Godzilla was a metaphor for the atomic attacks on Japan, so Cloverfield is a metaphor for 9/11 and also the war on terror. The metaphor hammer is liberally used - the monster appears from apparently nowhere and devastates New York, but it turns out that this is a monster which cannot be killed by bombing it; instead it just grows angrier and lashes out more when that happens. Eventually, the film ends with the US military taking the option to destroy everything in the hope of taking down the monster, but perhaps it would have been better to chat to the monster? To say "C'mon in my old mate, have a cup of tea and just accept each others differences", but alas, nobody tries that. Oh, the humanity.
The major schtick of the film which marks it out from any other DTDVD monster of the week film is the hand-held reportage style, ostensibly shot by an ordinary person cuaght up in events. The big problem with this style of film making is that despite the first-person YouTube immediacy of the filming, the only way to make it work is for the script to make the person holding the camera a hopeless imbecile. As far as I was concerned, the highlight of the film was the massively irritating educationally subnormal cameraman being eaten.
The problem is that to get the footage that he does, the cameraman has to act in a way that nobody would act and keep filming whilst giant monsters are trying to eat him. This is covered up with occasional asides about hiding behind the camera and 'people are gonna want to know how this went down', but the truth is that if I were carrying a camera when my house was attacked by a giant monster the only footage you'd get is of the camera getting thrown away as I'd be able to run faster unencumbered.
The lead characters of the film are a group of attractive, gym-toned twenty and thirtysomething New Yorkers. They're having a party to say goodbye to one of their number who is leaving when the city is attacked and the plot rotates around their attampts to save each other and escape - and it's the subtext of these characters which I find interesting. You see, just as the monster is a metaphor for insurgency warfare, I'm wondering if the characters are an 'everyman' group in that they represent the average American. All the way through the film the characters talk about where the monster might have come from - did it rise from the ocean depths, or did their government make it, or what? The implication is that the monster was made by their government - it's referred to once in a throwaway line as 'Project designate Cloverfield', which implies that someone knows a lot about it. However, the group of characters are very insular. They exist in an isolated world of their own petty sexual politics and careers, and it's established early on that at least one of them has never even been 'as far as Coney island'. When one announces their intention to leave for another country, this is a major event. I'm wondering if this relation between their ignorance of and lack of interest in the world beyond their front doors and their ignorance of the provenance of the monster which destroys them is one the audience is supposed to pick up on, or even if it is deliberate in the scripting.
And that's why I'm not sure if I like the film - I can't decide if it's a very clever film which is too subtle for its own good, or a very dumb one which inadvertantly touches on something quite deep.
In case you're not aware, Cloverfield is a monster movie. A combination of two of the major pop-culture events of the early C21 - Blair Witch and 9/11 - in which a giant monster attack on New York is seen in hand held camera footage taken by some one caught up in it.
The most obvious influence is Godzilla, and JJ Abrams (the writer) has said that he wanted to create a US version of that Japanese monster. In the same way that Godzilla was a metaphor for the atomic attacks on Japan, so Cloverfield is a metaphor for 9/11 and also the war on terror. The metaphor hammer is liberally used - the monster appears from apparently nowhere and devastates New York, but it turns out that this is a monster which cannot be killed by bombing it; instead it just grows angrier and lashes out more when that happens. Eventually, the film ends with the US military taking the option to destroy everything in the hope of taking down the monster, but perhaps it would have been better to chat to the monster? To say "C'mon in my old mate, have a cup of tea and just accept each others differences", but alas, nobody tries that. Oh, the humanity.
The major schtick of the film which marks it out from any other DTDVD monster of the week film is the hand-held reportage style, ostensibly shot by an ordinary person cuaght up in events. The big problem with this style of film making is that despite the first-person YouTube immediacy of the filming, the only way to make it work is for the script to make the person holding the camera a hopeless imbecile. As far as I was concerned, the highlight of the film was the massively irritating educationally subnormal cameraman being eaten.
The problem is that to get the footage that he does, the cameraman has to act in a way that nobody would act and keep filming whilst giant monsters are trying to eat him. This is covered up with occasional asides about hiding behind the camera and 'people are gonna want to know how this went down', but the truth is that if I were carrying a camera when my house was attacked by a giant monster the only footage you'd get is of the camera getting thrown away as I'd be able to run faster unencumbered.
The lead characters of the film are a group of attractive, gym-toned twenty and thirtysomething New Yorkers. They're having a party to say goodbye to one of their number who is leaving when the city is attacked and the plot rotates around their attampts to save each other and escape - and it's the subtext of these characters which I find interesting. You see, just as the monster is a metaphor for insurgency warfare, I'm wondering if the characters are an 'everyman' group in that they represent the average American. All the way through the film the characters talk about where the monster might have come from - did it rise from the ocean depths, or did their government make it, or what? The implication is that the monster was made by their government - it's referred to once in a throwaway line as 'Project designate Cloverfield', which implies that someone knows a lot about it. However, the group of characters are very insular. They exist in an isolated world of their own petty sexual politics and careers, and it's established early on that at least one of them has never even been 'as far as Coney island'. When one announces their intention to leave for another country, this is a major event. I'm wondering if this relation between their ignorance of and lack of interest in the world beyond their front doors and their ignorance of the provenance of the monster which destroys them is one the audience is supposed to pick up on, or even if it is deliberate in the scripting.
And that's why I'm not sure if I like the film - I can't decide if it's a very clever film which is too subtle for its own good, or a very dumb one which inadvertantly touches on something quite deep.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 11:25 am (UTC)It has to be said though that everyone in the theatre I watched it in was screaming at them to run when the rats left like, well, rats leaving a sinking ship. They really were too gormless at points.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 01:46 pm (UTC)Be aware that
no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 02:43 pm (UTC)Shame.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 05:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-26 02:58 pm (UTC)